Chhattisgarh State Going Green to Satisfy Its Power Requirement in India

The availability of electricity in rural India is still a distant dream. When will electricity on a 24x7 basis be available in every corner of the country—irrespective of the rural urban divide?

In addition, India’s energy crisis may be defined by the fact that a major share of its rural population is energy poor.

Lack of access to modern energy services represents a significant barrier to development. Innovation that makes a difference to people's lives in the Indian context is often very different from what the developed world considers cutting-edge.

However, things are changing due to various power sector initiatives carried out by the new central government under the leadership of Shri Narendra Modi, India would become the surplus energy country within a decade!

To improve the power sector in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, the state government has plans of electrifying all rural branches of State Bank of India (SBI) in the state with solar power during the next two years, as reported by Daily Pioneer.

CREDA - Chhattisgarh State Renewable Energy Development Agency has been constituted on 25th May 2001 under the Department of Energy, Government of Chhattisgarh for implementation of various schemes pertaining to Renewable Energy sources and Energy Conservation activities.

Since its inception, CREDA did extensive work in the field of Renewable Energy focusing on rural areas and standalone devices. It has implemented projects in the field of power generation from renewable energy and environment friendly sources.

CREDA has invested Rs 400 crores during last 11 years in developing infrastructure for solar power generation which had resulted in 40 MW of electricity being generated from non-conventional energy sources.

The State government has already commenced preparation for setting up 51,000 solar powered irrigation pumps in a span of two-and-half-years in the State.

And it has also targeted to electrify all the 19,000 villages in the State with solar power during the next two years.

As per the latest data available with the Union Ministry of Power, a total of 543 villages have to be electrified under ‘off-grid’ mode compared to 101 through the conventional power supply grid as on May 31, 2016.